For once Sally led and Lavinia let her lead. Just before she pushed the leather jacket off Lavinia’s shoulders Sally stroked the emblem of Odin’s raven which just might have brought her beloved back to her.

She opened Lavinia’s blouse it like it was the first time she’d seen Lavinia’s nakedness, delighting in the electric lusciousness of her heavy breasts, how they filled her hand and how Lavinia arched her back as she touched them. Lavinia’s tongue rippled across the side of her neck as her hands ran through Sally’s straight black hair. Sally leaned forward to take a soft nipple into her mouth.

Then Lavinia pressed her lips to Sally’s neck.

Sally froze, tried to reassure herself with the sound of Lavinia’s heartbeat, the warmth of Lavinia’s chest against her ear. But Lavinia understood instantly and put her lips to Sally’s ear. “You’re delicious but not that way,” she murmured. “I’m not hungry at all. God, it’s so great!”

Only then did Sally realize that Lavinia didn’t yet know that she was human again. Sitting up, she told her with great delight.

Lavinia surprised her by looking dismayed. “You don’t gotta say that, baby. I know what I am. Don’t tell me even sweet fibs, okay?” The van still rocked annoyingly and the voices from outside never stopped. “Let us in, you are one of us, invite us in.”

“I’m not making it up! You have a heartbeat, you’re warm, you have blood enough to blush. You’re cured, you’re alive!”

Lavinia shook her head. “But I still got the teeth.” She ran her tongue over them just to be sure. “Yep, still there. And I still got ….” Her brow creased.

Smiling, Sally watched her run through the other symptoms and realize they were all gone. “I’m not hungry any more. I’m not outside. I can live with the fucking teeth. Oh my God, baby!” She was crying now. “Oh my God, oh my god, c’mere, c’mere, oh my God.”

She pulled Sally to her and they cried together, oblivious to the noise outside. The back doors rattled, fists pounded against the windows, the driver’s side door croaked and groaned. Sally by now had seen Charla Thorpe’s video and if the noise became annoying enough, she would remind the vampires that they could not invade a home with noise. For the moment she didn’t care. She kissed her lover, her future wife, and she cooperated with all her heart when Lavinia’s tears sizzled into sexual heat.

“Get naked,” Lavinia commanded, and Sally, not caring what role she was or wasn’t in, was on fire to do just that. But this time she would push her pussy into Lavinia’s face and demand that Lavinia shove her fingers up her now. She lifted up to pull her jeans and panties off and saw the driver’s side door pulled slowly and stealthily open –

“Holy Jesus!” she yelled.

Sally lunged past the startled Lavinia, thinking she had somehow left the door open. She was just remembering that she hadn’t touched it but that it didn’t matter if the vampires opened it because they couldn’t come in -- when she saw a hungry white face slip in sideways, as though it were angling through a nebulous barrier.

She froze in horrified disbelief.

She’d perforated the vampire magic by inviting Lavinia in, she realized. The face looked around, blinked, then grinned evilly at her. “You can’t come in. You’re not invited. Get out!” Sally snarled.

The face kept its knowing grin and slid another inch into her home. Behind her, Lavinia’s breath caught and caught again. The passenger door clunked, then slowly croaked open too.

“No!” Sally screamed. “Out! All vampires, out! No single vampire is welcome in this home. Out!”

The face was shoved out by an invisible hand. But she heard a stirring from behind her and her heart stopped.

With a force which pressed Sally’s ribs painfully against the seat top, Lavinia was relentlessly moved to the open driver’s door and pushed out into the night.

Horrified, Sally saw it all in slow motion. For just an instant, bathed in the dim light from the open camper, Lavinia stood with her hands at her sides, bawling like a baby, pushed past the point of emotional breaking. Then the other vampires surged toward her, for they smelled the living blood.

Fully expecting to die, Sally threw herself out the door.

There were only four vampires this far from any town, not the dozens she’d been expecting; that helped. She bowled two of them over before they could reach Lavinia. Punching and shoving at cold flesh she cried, “You’re still welcome in our home, just Lavinia!” She yanked away a pallid face just sinking teeth into Lavinia’s neck and saw the pulsing wound, the hopelessness in her beloved’s eyes.

Then all four of them turned on her with savage grins.

Hands grabbed from all sides. She kicked and connected with a crotch, whirled and dragged cold heavy weight with her, punched out blindly but hit nothing, rolled and pulled bodies with her. She wrenched her hands free just as cold fingers pulled back her head and then she was pushing at a face which moved closer and closer to her throat. If the vampires had worked together instead of competing, three of them could have held her arms and feet while the fourth drank – but of course they couldn’t do that. Another face, mouth dripping with Lavinia’s blood, crowded in at an awkward angle. For just a moment its throat was exposed.

Sally slithered sideways and pulled so that the first face lunged onto empty air where her head had been. At the same instant she bit at the exposed throat.

Her teeth cracked the cold trachea with a dreadful crunch and a flood of acrid taste.

In the sudden silence, she spat out sickening fragments, stunned that she could have done such a thing. But so were the others: they stood motionless for a moment, watching her. The one she’d bitten slowly crumpled to the ground.

Through the nausea she tried to use this brief advantage but she could barely see straight. Hands grabbed her from both sides: two other vampires had drifted up. The remaining three of the original four closed in too. Everything moved slowly as a mass of bodies dragged her to the ground. She became aware that she was going to lose.

She was still glad she’d come for Lavinia. Was there an afterlife? Would Lavinia join her there? She held before her eyes the memory of Lavinia’s face. It had been worth it.

From behind her came a thick voice. “Vampires,” it said weakly.

All motion stopped. Lavinia’s voice.

“Vampires,” Lavinia said while Sally gaped in horror. “You’re welcome … in my home. Go.”

Every vampire hissed, “Aaaahhhh!”

The mass surged toward the camper. The vampires fought each other to get in, wriggled over the seats into the rear. From inside the rocking vehicle came little squeals of pleasure and cries of “Ooohh, a bed,” and “Cabinets!” In twenty seconds there was not a vampire in the entire parking lot.

The camper rocked itself to sleepy stillness.